


The Woman's Public Face

by bmouse



Series: The Client [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Gen, Normal Day At The Office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naoto has a nice cup of tea with her assassin. ( skittish clients are all in a day's work )</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman's Public Face

Naoto sits on the old, exquisitely carved wooden bench in the simple tea room and waits for her assassin to arrive. She had requested a woman specifically when they’d asked her preference and though she was still mostly in shock at her own audacity, floating above that was ‘I don't want to be judged today. I'm spending most of a decade of allowance to have someone killed and don't want the person I hired looking at me crosswise. That would be a little too much for me today.’

At precisely the appointed time on she looks up from her hands and finds that the door is still closed.

“Excuse me, milady.” Comes a voice to the left of her elbow.

They must have greased the hinges, she thinks, while her body stays shock-still in perfect posture as a thin hand with white very white fingernails sets a teapot at the center of the table. The porcelain teacup that appears in front of her folded hands has a pattern of green birds. It is very old and of a quality that would make even her fussy mother envious. Steam rises from the spout and Naoto exhales, thawed into a sudden comfort. This is almost the same ritual as the dressmaker, as the book merchant. The maid pours tea almost to the rim and doesn’t spill a drop. 

“Oh, thank you very much. “ Ishikawa no Naoto says politely and inclines her head a fraction deeper than she should for a commoner.

“The person I was supposed to meet here, are they...” she trails off. The maid has placed a second tea cup, red birds, opposite hers. Having read several shinobi stories, here Naoto expects a flash of light or a plume of smoke but the owner of the thin hand only walks (soundlessly) around the table, and sits down.

“I believe I am on time.” 

The assassin is a small plain woman with sand-colored hair and pale eyelashes. Her skin is the even tan color of canyon rocks and Naoto knows that she must be staring. No woman she has ever spoken to back home would ever leave her skin this sun-touched, never leave her nails unpainted or hair so plainly cut. So she stares. There have been too many days keeping her thoughts off her face, starting from the day she’d heard what was to happen to her. No one in her family, or even in her staff had even the slightest suspicion that she was unhappy with that future, that it terrified her. Courtier training hadn’t been wasted on Naoto , though it’s apparently left misery and contentment interchangeable on her face.

When her eyes finally slip upward she can see that the other woman is smiling at her. Faintly, gently, like an old schoolgirl friend she hasn’t seen in a long time but who’s heard that she’s been troubled and has come to help.

Kindness is the last thing she expected.

Naoto loses control of her face. It settles where it wants - into the haunted, hunted lines reserved for her hand mirror.

“Oh dear, not quite what you were thinking?”

Naoto tries to open her mouth for some kind of polite denial, to explain that it’s just strange to be with someone who finally /knows/ but finds that she can’t. The corners of her mouth have pulled down to expose a flash of her fashionably blackened teeth and she just needs a moment, a moment and her eyes will stop burning, the ugly sniffle will retreat away from her throat. She is pathetically grateful when her companion pretends the silence is voluntary.

“Please put your mind at ease, my lady. I have read your contract and I am more than equal to the task. Believe it or not I’ve handled many similar cases, it’s something of a family specialty.”

Gracefully, the kunoichi stretches out her arm. A small wooden bracelet with the character for ‘fan’ carved into it rests against the fine bone of her wrist. Her fingers blur in a series of shapes, and a sudden rush of air blows Naoto’s sidelocks back, pale smoke mingles with the steam from the teapot. In front of her, in that small outstretched hand is an enormous metal-bound fan. War fans are priceless artefacts, she’s read about them, their use is one of the sacred national arts, requiring fearlessness, precision and a nigh on supernatural wind affinity. In the right-hands their attacks could go through an invading army like a gale through flock of paper kites. It must have weighed 80 pounds but she holds it evenly in one hand and with no apparent strain places it on the table between them. Which creaks.

“So as you see milady” she continues as if this wasn’t the purest magic, what was in all the books but what most of the clients never really saw “I'm from a long line here we all are” she taps the side panel. Bright against scratches and scrapes in the metal are a series of names and notches. As she runs a white nail over the first name it looks suddenly sharp in the fading light.  
“There is great-great-grandmother, and great-aunt and mother, she did well for himself, and me,” her smile turns rueful “well I’m still young.” Naoto’s eyes follow the nail, fascinated, they fixate on the small forest of marks that trail after each name and it takes her a second to make out the last, her assassin has a slightly untidy hand. 

“Karura” and behind it seventeen small strokes. 

“I confess I am much relieved.” 

It seems like the right thing to say. She was in a room with a killer; this cheerful, friendly looking young woman has killed at least seventeen people. And it is a relief in a way, the tool she is spending her money on is suitable, sharp. 

“Well then” Karura says brightly as she reaches for the teapot and pours some tea into her own cup, which had been left empty, raises it up. They take the first sip. The tea is sweet and the sweetness bursts inside Naoto’s mouth like a child’s treat. The tea at her engagement had been refined, bitter. After this cup there will come a time when a certain person will never taste tea again. What am I doing? she thinks. She looks up through her fringe, Karura’s eyes have fluttered closed over her cup leaving the smallest slivers of green, her smile is the smile of a sphinx. This woman is the devil. As she sets down the cup Naoto’s hands tremble and it clinks. The green eyes open.

“I must be nervous, how unseemly of me.” the noblewoman almost stammers.

“Not at all.” the kunoichi shakes her head in a disarmingly girlish gesture, hair feathering across her cheekbones. “It speaks well of you that you did not intend this decision lightly. It is a difficult thing to realize that for our happiness to be assured another life must end. But I would not dream of judging the lady for her decision. After all we only have ourselves with which to shape this world and I believe it is a woman's duty to fight for her happiness by any means necessary. Few others will, after all.”

Naoto finds herself nodding, it all sounds so sensible.

With her slowing heartbeat reality returns to her thoughts. It’s as if she is floating above the room seeing things from the outside, the way they really are. Here she is, a not-pretty-enough unmarried maid of 29 propositioned by a man who did not know her for the sake of a title, a few buildings and a tract of land to consolidate his position. He had seen that her study was wall-to-wall shelves, hundreds of books and scrolls and hadn’t even asked her about her favorite novel, couldn’t even bother to pretend that their engagement was anything less than a sale. And from that position of clarity Naoto knows that if she turns back all the courage it had taken for her to come here would leave her, the way steam leaves a teacup or joy a reluctant bride. Well then. The decision is made and if her drinking companion is a devil at least she seems a merry one. Maybe when it’s over she could learn to smile like that.

Naoto breathes out and the room feels fresher somehow as she raises her cup again, finishes her tea.

\- - -


End file.
